Platinum’s NieR: Automata Coming To PC Too

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Cavia’s 2010 oddball action-RPG Nier never came to PC but I did hear good things about it, mutterings that it could be quite loveable if you got over its flaws, mutterings that reminded me of my beloved Deadly Premonition. Well, we still haven’t had Nier on PC but we will be getting the sequel. Publishers Square Enix today announced that NieR: Automata [official site] is coming our way and ooh, this time the venerable PlatinumGames are making it. Given the wonders they conjured when they made a game about a warcyborg, I’m jolly excited to see what they do with two childlike warbots. Beyond ultraviolence, obvs.

Square Enix announced the PlayStation 4 version last year but now it’s official: PC too.

So! It’s the future and mankind has retreated to the Moon because otherworldly invaders have flooded earth with fighting robots. Humanity sends its own warbots in return, including Automata’s childlike protagonists. Or something like that, anyway. Playing as a battle android named 2B, we’ll get to fight the naughty robots with swords, a gun drone buddy, and other Platinum coolness.

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Well, I wasn’t expecting that, given Platinum are still dragging their heels over Vanquish and Squenix seem to take forever to port things. But I’m honestly pleased to hear it. For all I mock Nier and think Taro Yoko’s speech is a legendary example of why videogame writing is generally awful, I have a real soft spot for the game regardless. It got a lot of things quietly right with its narrative, intentionally or otherwise, for all its brain-dead excess. It was weirdly entertaining to play, too, even at its jankiest, and the soundtrack was phenomenal. A lot of things about it hold up much better than Deadly Premonition (which is kind of a one-trick pony, really, and not half as novel as it first seems, but that’s a whole other argument). I’ll very likely buy Automata if I get the chance.

I can hardly think of any. That’s not meant as “Hahaha consoletoys sux lol” or anything; I’m just honestly intrigued by how many titles, certainly big titles, are going multiplatform. I was interested in Persona 5 but then I finished 3 and hated it, so I guess not. I wanted Rime but now that’s no longer an exclusive so it’ll probably go multiplatform. I admire Bloodborne but I couldn’t even finish Dark Souls so there’s not much point longing for another game I’d probably never complete, the Dark Souls games are multiplatform and From will probably keep releasing new games on PC. Microsoft seem reluctant to release any real exclusives, Sega are releasing on PC, Squenix, Capcom, even little guys like NIS and Spike Chunsoft… Atlus are about the only holdouts worth noting. I guess Nintendo and their third parties don’t release much? Anyway, I’m going off an a tangent here, I’ll stop. Still feels weird, though.

I’m yet to finish it, but NieR is one of the best games I’ve ever played until now (around 10 hours in). It does have faults and could be a lot better, but the world it creates and its charm is something else. It manages to make feel invested. Can’t wait for more of it.

As others have surely said, Deadly Premonition is both an unfair and appropriate comparison for Nier. Compared to DP, it’s a technical masterpiece. Compared to, say, any of Platinum’s high-budget, super-polished action games? It’s a bit of a mess.

Nier’s moment to moment gameplay can be summed up as ‘decent’. Functional. It does the job but is pretty bare-bones and unbalanced. It’s the Everything Else – the art direction, the playful genre shifting, the storytelling, the super creative use of multiple playthroughs – that makes it brilliant.

I mostly liked what I saw, but in that boss battle they appeared to be doing nothing at all to the boss the entire video. Just bouncing their swords off the metal bottom constantly. There was no reaction, no indication of impact at all. If I was playing that, I’d assume I wasn’t doing any damage and would quickly get frustrated trying to find the “secret” to the boss to actually hurt it.

Having watched the trailers now: the graphics look very basic and the levels kinda empty. That boss battle looked like a bullet hell shooter and spongy. Also no physics – the cloth didn’t move one bit, e.g. Not that that’s terribly important, but you get used to seeing stuff like that in 2016.

I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be nice to have top-of-form Platinum combat in this game, but the combat wasn’t the draw in the first game, the storytelling, worldbuilding, etc were. And so the combat isn’t why I’ll be buying this one, either, and if it turns out little more than functional, so be it.

NieR is one of my favorite console games of that generation and certainly the console RPG I liked best. It’s weirdly beautiful (despite no great technical prowess), the music is flipping fantastic, and the later plot events and reveals can be absolutely crushingly sad and/or horrifying. Of course, the way it finally ends doesn’t exactly set up for a sequel, and it wasn’t a bestseller, I don’t think, so I didn’t expect to see one, much less have it come to PC. I’m glad it will be, and I’m very interested to see where the story goes.